Mental Illness

Self-harm is an umbrella term for any harmful behaviour, action or habit. Self-harm includes a range of things, including overeating, taking drugs, smoking and drinking too much alcohol. This could be deliberate, because you are depressed or anxious, or as a way of punishing yourself for something you have done. When a person causes physical injury to themselves the term self-injury is used. It could be cutting, burning, pulling hair, picking skin or taking an overdose.

Affecting 1.1% of the population, and occurring more frequently in men than women, Autism Spectrum Disorders are a group of mental disabilities that can affect a person’s communication skills and social interaction.

Autism Spectrum Disorders can also occur with learning difficulties, Obsessive Compulsive Disorders and Attention Deficit Disorder, as well as other mental illnesses, such as anxiety and depression.

OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) is an anxiety disorder. An obsession is the repeated urge to do something, or desire for something; compulsion is when you feel the need to constantly repeat an activity, such as washing your hands or arranging objects.

Our moods always change. One minute we’re up, and the next, we’re down. Everyone’s like that. But sometimes the mood swings that everyone gets from time to time can go too far: someone can go from feeling giddy with joy to being unbearably sad, and back again. This can be a sign of mental illness, of bipolar disorder.

Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder where the person suffering from it swings back and forth, sometimes very rapidly or sometimes very slowly, between two very different moods or mental states, between depression and mania.

Confidence is tricky; particularly when other people are doing you down, you have low self-esteem or haven’t formed a very high opinion of yourself.

I never had enough confidence as a child, and this bred a shy girl, always hidden within a shell to protect myself from the criticism and opinions of others, wilting in the shadow of social and parental expectation. If your experiences are similar to mine, then I would like to tell you about the wonder that just having confidence can bring.

Feeling like you’re stuck is definitely not a unique problem, whether you’ve grown up with very little or come from a middle class working family, many people get to a point where they feel stuck in a situation and can’t see a way out. Learning how to deal with the feeling of being stuck is perhaps one of life’s most important lessons because if you know how to deal with this, no matter at what point in your life, you’ll be able to get “un-stuck”.

In October of this year, the country was shocked by allegations made against Sir Jimmy Saville, the late BBC TV and radio presenter, as police pursued 120 leads of sexual abuse that were made against him. The abuse spanned decades and involved more than 50 potential victims, from Stoke Mandeville Hospital where Saville volunteered, to the BBC’s Corporation House.

What do these successful people have in common other than being well known? Beethoven, Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, Christopher Reeve (Superman), David Blunkett and Admiral Lord Nelson....they all are/were disabled.